More than Useless ... Toxic

One of our associate pastors recently spoke on the cost of discipleship from Luke chapter 14. It was an excellent message. I mention it not so that these thoughts should be construed as an amendment, correction, or disagreement. What follows are simply thoughts that sprung forth as I was reflecting further on the topic.

The speaker mentioned that salt, as we think of it, typically does not lose its saltiness. In ancient Palestine, it was gathered from marshes and was filled with impurities. Over time, the impurities overwhelm the salt, and the mixture ceases to have any of the useful properties of salt. It becomes so polluted that it becomes useless. Professed followers of Jesus who will not follow Him are deemed, by the Lord Himself, to be useless to His cause.

No believer should want to be useless to the efforts of the kingdom. But, if that does not adequately get one’s attention, perhaps, that metaphorical left jab could be followed-up with a crushing right hook. Years ago, I preached through the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, where another treatment of this “salt of the earth” metaphor appears. I suspect it is the more familiar treatment of the two.

            “You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet … - Matthew 5:13

Luke’s account says:

… It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away.  – Luke 14:35

The Luke account points out the “uselessness” of salt without saltiness to both soil and fertilizer. The additional nuance from Matthew is that it is destructive, that is, toxic. Technically, this salt did have one singular use.  It was thrown away, but not willy-nilly. This sludge was thrown away “to be trampled under people’s feet.” In other words, it was used to treat the paths that cut through the fields from which pilgrims could legally pick grain for their own use on their various journeys from here to there. Farmers could not have people wandering through their fields and off the paths. If I were a farmer, I would want to keep those pathways well-defined. I would look for a product that would destroy all life and potential for life, something more than useless … something toxic. I may run down to my Home Depot and look for something that destroys even the possibility of life.

“What can I do for you, sir?” says the man in the vest.

I answer, “Do you have any of the that toxic sludge that used to be salt?”

Is “useless” versus “toxic” a distinction worth mentioning? If I was told that I was “useless” to some cause, I might not like it. It might hurt my feelings. I might even pout. On the other hand, as a fierce introvert by nature, I might learn to appreciate the incognito status of being of no value. I might just be satisfied that I still get to hang around with “Team Redeemed.”

However, if I am told that I am actually harmful to some cause, I would have to decide, “Do I want to be an ally in this cause or an enemy?” To simply exist as a useless appendage in the Body of Christ is not an option because it is not even a possibility. I will be detrimental to the cause of Christ, not simply irrelevant. I will be a witness to the Gospel, but a damaging one. My choice is rather clear. Do I want to be for Christ or against Him? I will need to examine myself to determine if I am really a man of faith at all.

I have never believed that an arbitrary line can be drawn between faith in Christ and being a disciple of Christ. “Why do you call me “Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46). Our obedience to Christ in this world is not a matter of little significance. The church falls into disrepute when adherents to Christianity rebel against the commands of God. We cannot flirt with how to bend rules without sinning. We must despise every appearance of evil.

The Body of Christ cannot infight over petty matters and advance the Gospel. We cannot enjoy impure entertainments. We cannot harbor rage, bitterness and unforgiveness. We cannot continue to tell tales and spread gossip. We cannot fly off the handle as a means of responding to the things that agitate us. We cannot express ourselves with coarseness and innuendo because we want to be seen as clever, relevant or because we want the world “to take us or leave us as we are.” (If that’s really the way you are, you need to look into repentance and transformation.) We can and should engage in the cultural debates of the age, but with respect – to one another, to leaders and to sinners. In personal crises, we cannot always resort to the same selfish short-cuts that the world may view as appropriate.

To be useful at all to the cause of the Kingdom of Christ, believers must walk as true disciples. Uselessness is not the only risk. Actual toxicity is another. We are to expect the Gospel to be scorned by the world, because followers of Christ who have come out from the world trust in a resurrected Savior and live with an expectation of eternal life. We should expect to be despised in the world, because darkness hates light. Somehow, the Gospel will continue to make strides forward. However, we are not to expect the world to mock the Gospel because its adherents show it to be irrelevant, powerless and non-binding when the chips are down. No one is drawn to that.

The Gospel Will Always Get Push-back, So Get Used to It

Ours was an interesting Bible School Class this past Sunday. My co-teacher was covering 1 Corinthians 15, that great chapter about the Resurrection of the Christ. A significant observation was raised rather quickly. In Corinth, everyone in the church seemed to embrace the Resurrection of Christ Himself, but some were denying the future resurrection of His people. In Corinth, the heresy of the moment suggested that nobody was going to heaven, because there was no resurrection of the dead. Today, the opposite idea seems to be the predominate idea in religious circles. The heresy du jour is that everybody is going to heaven. If a loved one lives a life anywhere short of the decadence of Adolph Hitler or Genghis Khan, his loved ones tend to comfort one another with the assurance that he or she is in “a better place.”

It occurred to me that the culture, whatever beliefs may be in vogue from one generation to the next, will always push back at the claims of the Gospel. The pressure that comes with this pushback may have as much to do with the bad teaching and heresy that has arisen in the church through the centuries as any other factor.

Picture some well-meaning Corinthian as he ventures into the marketplace, determined to share his newfound faith. His claims of life after death are met with laughter, ridicule and derision. One believer after the next encounters a similar reaction. It begins to appear evident to the Christian community in Corinth that this response may very well become the norm. It becomes almost irresistible to consider how the gospel might be retailored so as not to ring so absurdly in the ears of the philosophical elite who had a stranglehold on the thought and rhetoric in that ancient city. Some Corinthian Christian had to be the first to think to himself, “Maybe this future resurrection idea IS a little far-fetched.”

Paul reminded the Corinthians of the historical evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus, a truth they were not questioning, at least, not yet. Many of the hundreds of eyewitnesses were still living. After all, only a couple of decades had passed. Paul also reminds them that they had believed and taken their stand on that gospel. They could not modify it. They could only walk away from it. The apostle would eventually make the argument that if Christ is raised, the power to raise the rest of them was already established.

You may be numbered among the well-meaning contemporary Christians who has attempted to defend your faith in the modern marketplace of ideas. The Gospel suggests that Christ died for sinners, but effectively, only for those who will call their sin what it is, turn away from it, and pursue Christ as a disciple. God has spoken in terms of moral absolutes which define our sins, and some things remain sinful no matter how tolerated and even embraced they are by this current age. That position on moral absolutes is met with the same ridicule and hostility that your first-century counterpart endured when he spoke of a resurrection to come. But, you are not only a rube for believing the things you believe. You are also an intolerant, narrow-minded, judgmental and hateful rube.

Such harsh rhetoric will take a toll on anyone over time, especially if we fail to remember that Jesus Himself told us to expect it. It certainly becomes tempting to back away from some of our stances. Who wants to be called names like that? Perhaps, we can get away with soft-selling the sin and repentance dimensions of the Gospel and emphasize the acceptance, love and forgiveness aspects of Jesus. But, an imbalanced gospel is not the true Gospel. Jesus extended much grace to many people during His three-year ministry, but He was also never reluctant to warn them of Hell, to call them to repentance, and to tell them, “knock it off” when addressing their sinful practices.

Hence, some heresies are born not so much from some sinister and demonic motive as from a simple fear of trusting Jesus enough so as to handle His message faithfully and boldly. This pushback from the world creates a breeding ground for peddlers of religion to appear on the scene to preach what people with itching ears want to hear. Once-sound churches abandon orthodoxy and any emphasis on overcoming sin, apparently, because growth and survival seem more favorable to their boards and clergy than faithfulness regarding that “faith which was once for all entrusted to the saints.” Again, it may well be that more deviation from sound doctrine is born of cowardice and compromise than because some reckless lunatic woke up one morning and decided to pit himself against God as an enemy of truth.

Where did it all begin? In the pit of hell? Not so fast. It may have begun simply with ill preparation. If we do not believe the world will hate us, then, we have not been closely paying attention … not to the Christ who first warned us, not to Paul who reiterated the Lord’s teachings on the matter, and not to the lessons of many martyrs through the ages.

            ¹⁸”If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. ¹⁹If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. ²⁰Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.”  - John 15:18-20

¹⁸For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”  - 1 Corinthians 1:18